Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Chapter four

Monday was just like any other day. Make my morning coffee run, pick up Emma, go shopping at the strip for awhile, check out the guys, and most importantly, deal with clients. But this particular day, I only had one client who was waiting for me in the paint aisle at Lowe’s, looking particularly delicious, even more so than my coffee. Sidney was staring at the Valspar paints, my favorites, with a confused look on his face.

“Hey,” I said as I approached. Sidney turned to look at me, a bright yellow paint chip in his hand. He held it up for me to see.

“Lemon Curd?” he asked me. I had to think about it for a minute, but it eventually dawned on me that he was referring to the paint color. “They name paint Lemon Curd? I don’t even know what that is,” he said with exasperation.

“Okay, I need you to calm down,” I said with a playful tone to my voice. “Just don’t look at the names. Tell me which ones you like,” I finished, taking the paint out of his hand and inspecting it myself. I actually liked the color, so I shoved it in my pocket in case I ever wanted to use it.

“I like the idea you said. Yellows and grays, and maybe some blues. I’m open to blue,” he said, sounding proud of himself.

“Okay. Well, we can do a light blue, that’ll go well with the yellow. Or maybe even a bright blue,” I said, holding the paint chips up next to each other.

“I think I want my room to be gray,” he said, picking up a swatch of light gray with a hint of blue. “Whispering Winds, how nice,” he said dryly.

“See this?” I asked, pulling the paint chip out of his hands. “See how it goes so well with the blue? That’s because there’s blue in the gray.”

“I never realized there were so many shades of gray…” he said almost wistfully.

“There are,” I said, slightly annoyed. “Now, let’s get down to business, actually picking the colors.”

We ended up with some yellows, grays, blues, and even a green or two, all in those miniature sample cans. We even bought Lemon Curd, just for the thrill. I had never had this much fun picking out paint colors before in my life, even when I was little and my mom and I would go to Lowe’s and just look at the Oops Paints, buying any we thought were pretty, then going home and finding a wall that needed a new coat of paint. I miss that, now that I think of it.

“Avery?” Sidney asked me, almost halfway out the door, while I stood, thinking, one hand in my purse searching for something that had now slipped my mind.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said, hoisting my purse over my shoulder and running to catch up with him.

“What’s next on the agenda?” he asked once we were halfway across the parking lot and I had pulled my new Kia Soul’s keys out of their hiding spot. I glanced down at my watch and decided I had time to do something else.

“Do you want to go look at furniture?” I asked, pointing over at Bassett and Thomasville, side by side, staring back at us, inviting us to look inside.

“Sure,” he said with one of those heart-melting smiles. “Let me just put this in my car,” he said, referring to our many paint colors.

“Okay,” I said, mostly to myself. I stood there, watching him walk to his car, thinking about what I was doing. This? This feeling doesn’t happen to me. Guys don’t do this to me. A cute guy smiles at me and I glare at them. Why am I letting this happen? Something, maybe a voice in my head, was telling me that this, this thing, is good for me, so no matter how much I try, I can’t push this guy away.

We walked into the store, and we might as well been holding hands. So many people suddenly forgot their manners, if they ever had any, and were staring at us. “Does this always happen to you?” I hissed as an old lady looked at us with one of the creepiest expressions I had ever seen in my life.

“It happens a lot,” Sidney said with a snigger.

“Whatever,” I said, brushing it off. “So what sort of stuff do you like?” I asked, running my hand over a white leather couch I was currently eyeing until I picked up the price tag. $7,000 is a major turn-off.

“I’m not sure what I like. How about we just look around?” he suggested, making his way around the displays to a bed I really like. Every time I come in here, I always see it and I always want it. Oh dear, what is he doing? Sidney threw himself face first onto the bed, like a little kid who had too much cotton candy for dessert.

“Come on Avery, jump on the bed,” he said, from the depths of the mattress.

“I don’t think we should be jumping on a bed in a furniture store,” I said, looking around to make sure no one saw what he just did.

“Live a little,” he said, standing up on the bed with his shoes on and proceeding to bounce up and down. I really thought I’d have a heart attack. He could see I was mortified and did it all the more. “I won’t stop until you get up here with me.”

“Fine fine. I’ll jump on the bed. Sit down,” I said before I hurled myself onto the bed next to him. “See? I did it. Now get down.”

“Oh no. The stakes have just gone up. Now you have to actually jump up and down with me,” he said in between hops. I could feel my throat constricting as I got up, with my shoes also on, and jumped a little.

“Okay, I’m done,” I said flopping down on the bed and just lying there, trying to catch my breath. I felt the bed stop shaking and the next thing I knew, he was right next to me.

“That wasn’t too bad, now was it?” he asked me, and truth was, I actually thought it was really fun, but I was too proud to admit someone had proved me wrong.

“It was alright,” I said, trying to suppress a smile. The smile gave me away.

“You loved it,” he said, sounding pleased with himself as he rolled over on his back next to me. I had the dirtiest thoughts to go with that and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Why make me do that though?” I asked, the giggles wearing off. He sat up and got off the now ruined bed with a shrug of his shoulders.

“You seem like you need to have some fun,” he said simply, looking down at me. “Now, back to furniture. I really like this bed. Very bouncy.”

4 comments:

  1. Haha, like a little kid in a store full of beds! 1 little Siddy jumping on a bed.

    Haha! Awesome chapter!

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  2. haha i loved that:]
    "very bouncy"
    now what does he have in mind

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  3. hhaha i loved this :]
    keep the chapters coming!!

    ReplyDelete